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Topic: Hypnos 2010 outlook (Read 35389 times)

I'll probably be able to post more detail in the coming weeks, as we seem to have an unusual number of projects in the "probably/maybe" category right now, and not too many locked-down in the "definitely coming soon" category. Several people have asked recently, though, and as we head into the home stretch of 2009 I wanted to give an idea of what we have planned for the coming year here at Hypnos.

END OF 2009 STUFF

Seren Ffordd - Stellar NurseriesThis is a reissue of the earliest release by this Welsh ambient artist (actually I believe he corrected me once that he's not exactly Welsh, so let's say he's an ambient artist who resides in Wales), and album originally on the Umbra label. This kicks off a series of Seren Ffordd reissues to come over the next year or so.

Viridian Sun - Infinite In All DirectionsThe first new studio album from this duo (Mike Griffin and David Tollefson) in a decade, and also the first CD featuring the new Hypnos packaging style. So far, people seem to like it!

Mystified - Primal MystificationThe first release on Hypnos (on the Secret Sounds imprint) from this artist who also, like Seren Ffordd above, happens to be a Hypnos Forum regular. This just came out so we're anxious to hear what listeners think of it.

We also have one more album that should be released prior to the end of 2010, as it's currently at the CD pressing plant and we think it's better than 50/50 it'll be done before these last 2 weeks elapse.

Jeff Pearce - Daylight Slowly (reissue)This was the first Jeff Pearce album we release on Hypnos and the 3rd (I think... got to check the web and clarify my brain on this) Pearce album ever, but it lapsed out of print some years ago and it's long overdue for a reissue.

Please note, the above artwork for Daylight Slowly is just a bit of a tease. The new release will have entirely new artwork!

That brings us to the end of our 2009 and I'll post again (after I run out to lunch) about what's coming up in 2010.

Next up after Daylight Slowly is another reissue, though this is a reissue of something not originally released on Hypnos. The album is The Path of White Clouds by the group Nebula, now known as NebulŠ. You can read a bit about this "ambient supergroup" (of which the member best known to Hypnos listeners is certainly Oophoi) here: http://www.hypnos.com/releases-neb-powc.php

Since we scheduled this release, one of the group members, Klaus Wiese, has passed away. This represents a great loss to the ambient music world, and we hope some of those who aren't familiar with Klaus's work will become acquainted with it through this album, and may pursue some of his other solo works.

As with the Daylight Slowly above, the artwork here is correct but the cover layout will be changed with the new style of black border at the top only, and also the artist/title text on the cover will be centered, rather than offset-left-justified.

EDIT: artwork revised to reflect the new layout, contrary to comments above

One aspect of our output that has represented a decent number of releases per year is the reissue of previously out of print albums on Hypnos Secret Sounds.

In the past we've reissued such things as Drifts by Ben Fleury-Steiner or Stellar Nurseries by Seren Ffordd, or the Matt Borghi reissue series including Huronic Minor, December Impressions and The Phantom Light.

We realize that for the more hardcore ambient music audience these releases are fairly unexciting, as they represent items previously made available into the world. Certainly one could make the argument that if some serious fan of Matt Borghi, let's say, really wanted a copy of December Impressions, he would already own the prior issue. And that's true, but not everybody is a hardcore fan. Many people become fans of a given artist somewhat late in the game, and might miss out on that artist's earlier releases if some of them are no longer available.

As far as we're concerned, one of the great things about Hypnos Secret Sounds and the limited edition CDR medium is the way it allows us to release sounds that deserve to be available, but which may not (for the reasons mentioned above) inspire a large segment of the ambient music buying public to rush out and purchase it now. In other words, we are able to make these available again, even if most of the people who may want to own these albums already own copies. We hate hard to find, out of print obscurities as much as any collector!

We may schedule some new reissues during the year, but for now, these are the releases we have planned, all on HSS.

First I'll address the carry-over releases, items planned for 2009 that haven't happened.

We've been planning the Nevertime compilation for our Binary sub-label for so long, and while there's a will to make this happen and start giving more emphasis to the Binary side of things (more dynamic electronica, as compared to our usual more restrained ambient), it just hasn't happened yet. Part of me wants to say don't count on this, since it's already been substantially delayed, but another part of me wants to say a compilation would be a good thing for 2010 and we did three Hypnos compilations in twelve months between 2008-9 (Sounds of a Universe Overheard, Message From a Subatomic World, and Echoes of Polyhymnia), so it would be great to do a comp with a slightly different style. So we'll see.

The Vapors and Magnetism video DVD has likewise been long-delayed and I have to take 100% of the blame on this one. My own work in digital video has slowed a bit as I pursue other creative interests, so this will be postponed indefinitely and I'll probably take it off the list of planned releases until more progress is made.

The Evan Bartholomew release Tidal Phases of the Moon I was delayed while we debated some issues with the audio master, and then Evan went on tour and didn't have time to work on tweaking the master. This sat on the back burner a while, and then Evan moved out of the local area. We sort of lost touch and need to reconnect, and see if we can get this to happen, or whether it's better to remove this from the list of planned releases. I'd still like to do it, so it's just a matter of communicating with Evan to see if it's something he's inclined to do, or if it's sort of in his rear-view mirror by now.

That just about sums up the projects that have been delayed to the point of actually stalling out. It's possible none of these will happen and it's equally possible all of them will still happen. Maybe we'll be able to count some of these definitively in or out fairly soon.

The last batch of projects mentioned were items that I consider "less definite" due to having slipped or delayed from 2009. The next few projects are somewhat short of definite because they're so new, and still in the planning or negotiating stages.

New possibilities for 2010

First, Hypnos is in discussions with an Italian trio called Herion, which features some names some of you may have heard: Enrico Coniglio, Emanuele Errante and Elisa Marzorati. Well, I have to admit I hadn't heard of Elisa before this, but Enrico had worked with Oophoi before (Aqua Dorsa) and Emanuele has a very nice album on Evan Bartholomew's label, Somnia. The Herion album, Out and About is a beautiful and compelling combination of delicate musical structures with "glitch" components and strange, experimental little samples. The album is a real pleasure to listen to, and this appears very likely as a March 2010 release.

Next, we are likewise still in discussions with Faryus, the Russian ambient artist (real name Andrey Sadovnikov) who is the owner of the Faria label:http://hypnos.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=fariaHe has also collaborated with Robert Rich most recently, on the album Zerkalo. His new solo album is called Silence Spells and assuming we are in agreement about all terms, this would be likely a first quarter 2010 release.

A few other things to throw out there, just to tantalize people who like to hear about stuff like this, or maybe to garner some feedback of the "you MUST release that one" or maybe "no, the world does NOT need another M. Griffin CD!"

So, then. One possible release is the first in my own planned series of minimal/drone "sound environment" recordings, Aetherspace 1. This recording is mostly done, but as these things sometimes go, I feel pretty unmotivated to work on long-form minimalism at the moment, and may set this aside while pursuing some different ideas I've planned out as far as written notes, but not recorded yet. On the other hand (why does it always come down to one hand or the other?) I may just plow through and polish up this first one, release it on CD and then allow a bit of time to pass before starting on Aetherspace 2. Also, this was originally announced as a Hypnos Secret Sounds release, but if it does happen, it will be released on the main Hypnos label.

A few other possibilities out there, ranging from cool demos I've heard but haven't really talked to the artist yet about what they want to do with it, to interesting and promising collaborations between names well-known to Hypnos and those who read this Forum (but haven't heard the music yet), to partially-completed recordings that would need work before they'll be ready to release and it remains to be seen when that will happen. A few of these include:

Viridian SunAn entire album was recorded and never edited, and just sat on the shelf, back around 2002 or so. The material is just as interesting as anything else we've released, but due to whatever was going on at the time in the lives of those involved, it just never finished cooking. We would like to put in a little surge of effort on editing and mastering this and release it, and we think people would enjoy it. It's not quite as entirely guitar as the new album Infinite In All Directions, but not quite as electronic-sounding as the first two studio albums.

Sense Project, aka Robert LoganJust received a very nice demo from Robert whose Sense Project debut was released on Hypnos Secret Sounds not too long ago. We haven't discussed it much yet, but something may come of this. It's a bit more ambient, and less dynamic, than the prior 2-CD Sense Project debut.

Oophoi and Seren FforddThese two have a nearly-completed collaborative recording which I look forward to hearing, and I understand that Hypnos will at least be given a chance to hear it, though I don't know if there may be other labels interested in it as well. The album title is Martian Chronicles, obviously inspired by the Ray Bradbury book.

Oophoi and Paul Vnuk Jr.Same thing applies here as to the Oophoi & Seren Ffordd above -- new project, nearly completed, and I've been told I'll get to hear it soon. It's called Zero Distance: The Dreamfields so obviously it has some relation to their prior collaboration, Distance To Zero, which was released on Hypnos.

Griffin and OophoiLastly, a collaboration between myself and Oophoi has been in the works for a long while and it's up to me to make a go at editing down 2.5 hours worth of stuff into single CD length, then sharing with Oophoi (who initiated the project, providing sound clips which I looped and added to) what I've done, after which we'll decide if we need to add more material before this is finished. Most likely this would not be given precedence over the two Oophoi collaborations listed above, and I don't think it would make good sense to release three Oophoi collaborations within a short time, but if one or both of the above fell through for Hypnos, we might finish this one up and release it. This is probably the single least likely 2010 release of anything in this entry, though it definitely will be released at some point.

There may be other items out there on the "maybe horizon" but, as much as I'd love to get a new Jeff Pearce ambient album, or a new disc from Numina, or the previously-discussed Griffin & Numina collaboration, the items already listed are about as far as I'm willing to delve into speculation at this point. At least this gives a fairly good idea what we're looking forward to for the coming year.

Happy Holidays to Hypnos Headquarters! This is really exciting to read. Since you finally released "Fabrications", I can't bother you with that, however, I still wonder what became of Jeff Karsin's HSS project. After I brought it up way back when it seemed that it might be on again but not a mention since. Is Jeff hiding in a cave somewhere in New Mexico (with Elvis)? Just curious. Nonetheless it looks like an exciting new year for Hypnos. Thanks to you and Lena for all the hard work!Peace, Kirk

That Jeff Karsin release was originally planned long ago, years before HSS even came around. There were some delays, some confusion as to which tracks were to be part of the album and which not (I received several different masters, including a couple of CDRs with just one track on them), and Jeff basically vanished from the ambient music scene entirely for long periods, during which times the project would return to the back burner. Sometimes he'd pop back up and we'd start discussing the album again, but considering how long he's been inactive I'd say his heart wasn't really in it, though I don't really know.

Hey Mike, I too, remember mention of it going way back. When I brought it up awhile back Jeff wrote that he was surprised anybody thought about this project. That's when things started heading toward a possible manifestation in the HSS catalog. Hypnos seemed like the perfect place for Karsin's music, but alas...

Judd, to be honest I don't remember all the details of the James Johnson situation -- exactly who said what, and when -- but my recollection is that James had some changes in his personal situation that corresponded almost exactly with the announcement that he would release some music on Hypnos again, and which resulted in him wanting to put our plans aside. Since we had just made this announcement I felt a bit awkward coming out immediately with a followup "never mind all that" announcement, so I just let it rest.

I like the idea of releasing more Hypnos and less HSS, because for the most part I haven't been too interested in them. Good to give the new guys a chance, but I'd rather spend money on the more established artists on CD format. A good way to release the newer artists, though, is on the comps, although I think the last three is enough for now. I'd rather see more one-artist projects in the near future.

The Hypnos Store is awesome. I hope that keeps going. It's great to be able to get some of these expensive imports at a domestic price, and to save on shipping with the "one ship fee per order" system.

The planned Pearce and Nebulae reissues are good picks. Others I'd like to see, however feasible, are Suso Saiz "Hypnotics," Solitaire "Fearless," and anything by Asianova!

Artists I'd like to see on Hypnos: Thom Brennan, Mathias Grassow (solo), Lisa Franklyne (who previously recorded under the alias "Amir Baghiri.")

Drone On was not trying to suggest that Amir Baghiri has had a sex change. It was a joke only Hypnos Forum old-timers would appreciate, about the time somebody named Lisa Franklyne signed up here, and immediately started posting frequent, repetitive messages about how Amir Baghiri was the greatest genius ever. Though Lisa claimed to be from Indiana, "her" English seemed remarkably like that of a non-native speaker. When it turned out that Lisa Franklyne was just Amir posting under a sock puppet account, there was much name-calling, castigation, and gnashing of teeth.

I don't know about anybody else, but I have no hard feelings toward Amir about that. I think he got carried away with self-promoting, and I'm sure he'd keep his enthusiasm under control if he had a "do over" on the whole Lisa Franklyne thing. Amir makes some very nice music and we've certainly sold a lot of his CDs on the Hypnos store.